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Whispers in the Woods (dir. Vincent Munier, France, 2025)
Exquisite photography of the beautiful Vosges mountains in eastern France, replete with patient telephoto wizardry depicting the feathery and furry inhabitants amidst a stunningly beautiful wintry forest habitat. The imagery is augmented by the welcome addition of the pleasing camaraderie of three generations of nature-lovers - a grandfather, father and son - who explore the woods with the reverence of true wildlife devotees. There's also a side-trip to the Norwegian mountains to view the capercaillie grouse in the wild, because its numbers in the Vosges are sadly declining. The film boasts umpteen memorably beautiful images, but perhaps my two favourites were the ancient tree hosting two different bird families plus an irked red squirrel, and the close-up of a snoozing fox kept from fully-fledged slumber by the tickling of a tiny ant's progress across its ear.
Nambassa Festival (dir. Philip Howe, NZ, 1979)
A wonderful restoration to its original feature length, not seen since it was released in cinemas, and a vital document of New Zealand counter-culture life at its peak. An isolated, windswept farm hillside turns into a tent city for the country's largest rock festival, and the performances illustrate just how proficient the local music scene was at the time, honed on a demanding circuit ripe with competition. Creativity abounds, and not just in the harlequin-era Split Enz set-closer, or in the kinetic splendour of the leotard-sporting Limbs dance company. Nambassa may not have Woodstock's legendary rain, but it does have an impressive windstorm. And perhaps the most fascinating aspect of the documentary is the breadth of its alternative-lifestyle workshops and the accompanying way of life - plenty of Hare Krishnas, yoga instructors, tai chi, and a plethora of advice on how to 'get back to the land'. There's also lots of vivid period detail: the complete lack of sun-smartness - one trier in tiny shorts, doubtless purchased from Warnocks, seems to be mainly protected by his closely-guarded box of DB Double Brown - converted Bedford house-buses with retro-fitted stained-glass windows, plenty of free-range kids, a subversive puppet show, and the famously noxious communal long-drop toilets. My father was there, but he didn't show up in the film! (To view the unrestored 50-minute TV cut, visit NZOnScreen).
Nuisance Bear (dir. Jack Weisman & Gabriela Osio Vanden, Canada, 2026)
A beautifully-shot documentary illustrating the impact of climate-change induced increases in polar bear encounters around Churchill, Manitoba and the Inuit settlement of Arviat, Nunavut. The elaborate and humane bear removal process around Churchill works for that community, but in the case of the titular bear followed by this crew at least, seems to just move the problem elsewhere. And the Inuit naturally have a different perspective on polar bears, having hunted them for millennia. With exquisite Arctic cinematography and an expert electronic score, this is a top-flight nature documentary.
While it covers similar dramatic territory as Joachim Trier's Sentimental Value - a director seeking to reconnect with his estranged daughter by casting her in his latest film - The Beloved treads different ground in that it delves even more deeply into the mechanisms of filmmaking and the powerful relationships between the ultimate dictators - film directors - and their actors. Filmed in Fuerteventura in the windswept Canary Islands, the film benefits from two strong lead performances from Javier Bardem and Victoria Luengo, and offers a fascinating and believable portrayal of building a period drama in challenging locales while coming to terms with decades of unresolved tensions. Its unwillingness to offer easy solutions or vindication might alienate some viewers, but its depiction of the messy, emotional and sometimes risky task of both making a film and rekindling a dormant family relationship has the ring of authenticity.
Fatherland (dir. Pawel Pawlikowski, Germany, 2026, feat. Sandra Hüller, Hanns Zischler)
It's rare that you can emerge from a festival film and wish that it might've been an hour longer, but that can be said of Paweł Pawlikowski's European co-production depicting Nobel Prize-winning writer Thomas Mann's 1949 return from California to a divided post-war Germany after 16 years of exile in Switzerland and America, to commemorate the 200th birthday of Goethe. The film depicts this visit through the relationship between Mann (Hanns Zischler) and his daughter Erika (Sandra Hüller) as they navigate the culture shock of their ruined homeland and family tragedy amidst the political machinations of the early Cold War. In a telling scene in an East German canteen where the Manns arrive unexpectedly, the dire straits of the actual DDR and how divorced from the stage-managed pageantry it is quickly become obvious: when a coffee and juice are sought, all that can be offered are chicory and sea-buckthorn. Beautifully shot in black-and-white, and featuring exquisite choral performances as Mann is feted West und Ost, this is a restrained work that will bear rewatching.
Rose (dir. Markus Schleinzer, Austria, 2026, feat. Sandra Hüller)
Fast becoming an unmissable actor in whatever project she chooses - Sandra Hüller excels as a 17th-century soldier setting up as a farmer in an isolated German village, maintaining her cross-dressing subterfuge even through a surprise matrimonial contract. Replete with exquisite black-and-white cinematography, Rose successfully captures the fragile beauty of hard-toiling rural life. Throughout Hüller's performance is compelling and engaging, as the soldier who longs to escape the years of violence and cruelty implicit in army life during the seemingly never-ending Thirty Years War (1618-48).
Dead Man's Wire (dir. Gus Van Sant, USA, 2025, feat. Bill Skarsgård, Dacre Montgomery, Al Pacino, Colman Domingo, Myha'la)
Mingled with authentic found footage of the actual 1977 hostage events that inspired the story, Gus Van Sant's film is a winning combination of talented leads Bill Skarsgård and Dacre Montgomery, a deftly handled supporting cast including Colman Domingo, Cary Elwes and Al Pacino, and commendable attention to period detail in its urban Indiana setting. Apart from some slightly over-used 1970s cinema staples on the soundtrack, perhaps the only meaningful limitation, revealed when the real footage of the perpetrator and victim is screened over the end credits, is that Skarsgård's performance is so appealing that the audience's sympathy is thoroughly engaged despite the violence inherent in the crime being perpetrated.
Fjord (dir. Cristian Mungiu, Norway, 2026, feat. Renate Reinsve, Sebastian Stan)
An intriguing slow-burn dramatisation of the Norwegian child protection system in action in a remote fjord hamlet, bringing a large Norwegian-Romanian Christian family into a bitter custody dispute with the state. As with all compelling tales, there are no 'goodies and baddies' here, although it's hard not to feel sympathy for the family whose child-rearing differs from the prevailing ethos of the community they live in, with potentially disastrous results. But that depends on whether this is a realistic depiction of the actual process, or an exaggerated caricature for political ends. Also, the use of English for the older children results in some slightly stilted acting, and the director's potentially heavy-handed depiction of the film's final scene detract from the film's many successes.
Last Man Standing (dir. Gerd Pohlmann, NZ, 2026)
A comprehensive survey of a political career defined by courageous and, at times, iconoclastic stances backed up by comprehensive political organisation skills and tireless campaigning, both within parties and in public. For a self-defined poor kid from Western Springs to rise to the rank of party president then leader of his own party and, eventually, Deputy Prime Minister, shows the extent of Jim Anderton's achievements, and his many interviews and the testimonials of friends, colleagues and a few rivals, illustrate the breadth of his talents. It's a small miracle the documentary was able to be made to this quality without much-needed public funding, and it's a credit to the production team that it's emerged in a polished form. Irrespective of its focus on one man, it's also an effective overview of 30 years of New Zealand politics, which is no mean feat. The only potential critique could be that in attempting to reflect the myriad of political signposts across a lengthy career, it sometimes errs towards political score-settling by Anderton's surviving circle.
La Gradiva (dir. Marine Atlan, France/Italy, 2026)
An engrossing immersion in a senior high-school class trip from France to the glories of Naples, including Pompeii and Vesuvius, in which the complex and mercurial hormonal dynamics within the class take precedence over most academic concerns. The leading teen actors are uniformly excellent, as is Antonia Buresi as the class' persevering classics teacher. The film really shines in two extended sequences - one, in which the teacher conveys her boundless enthusiasm for her topic despite the boisterous disruptions of a troubled class-member, and another in which five teen girls share home truths about a particularly beautiful and untrustworthy boy.
Father Mother Sister Brother (dir. Jim Jarmusch, USA, 2025, feat. Tom Waits, Adam Driver, Charlotte Rampling, Cate Blanchett & Vicky Krieps)
An amiable, if somewhat aimless trilogy of expertly-cast and convincingly-portrayed family scenes - one set in rural America, one in the genteel Dublin suburbs, and the final in the heart of urban Paris. There are some gently perceptive observations of the minute awkwardness of family dynamics and the facades erected to maintain equilibrium with a parent or sibling, but ultimately it's the impressive cast that merits attention, rather than the material they're working with, which doesn't offer much in the way of profundity.
Fast becoming an unmissable actor in whatever project she chooses - Sandra Hüller excels as a 17th-century soldier setting up as a farmer in an isolated German village, maintaining her cross-dressing subterfuge even through a surprise matrimonial contract. Replete with exquisite black-and-white cinematography, Rose successfully captures the fragile beauty of hard-toiling rural life. Throughout Hüller's performance is compelling and engaging, as the soldier who longs to escape the years of violence and cruelty implicit in army life during the seemingly never-ending Thirty Years War (1618-48).
Dead Man's Wire (dir. Gus Van Sant, USA, 2025, feat. Bill Skarsgård, Dacre Montgomery, Al Pacino, Colman Domingo, Myha'la)
Mingled with authentic found footage of the actual 1977 hostage events that inspired the story, Gus Van Sant's film is a winning combination of talented leads Bill Skarsgård and Dacre Montgomery, a deftly handled supporting cast including Colman Domingo, Cary Elwes and Al Pacino, and commendable attention to period detail in its urban Indiana setting. Apart from some slightly over-used 1970s cinema staples on the soundtrack, perhaps the only meaningful limitation, revealed when the real footage of the perpetrator and victim is screened over the end credits, is that Skarsgård's performance is so appealing that the audience's sympathy is thoroughly engaged despite the violence inherent in the crime being perpetrated.
Fjord (dir. Cristian Mungiu, Norway, 2026, feat. Renate Reinsve, Sebastian Stan)
An intriguing slow-burn dramatisation of the Norwegian child protection system in action in a remote fjord hamlet, bringing a large Norwegian-Romanian Christian family into a bitter custody dispute with the state. As with all compelling tales, there are no 'goodies and baddies' here, although it's hard not to feel sympathy for the family whose child-rearing differs from the prevailing ethos of the community they live in, with potentially disastrous results. But that depends on whether this is a realistic depiction of the actual process, or an exaggerated caricature for political ends. Also, the use of English for the older children results in some slightly stilted acting, and the director's potentially heavy-handed depiction of the film's final scene detract from the film's many successes.
Last Man Standing (dir. Gerd Pohlmann, NZ, 2026)
A comprehensive survey of a political career defined by courageous and, at times, iconoclastic stances backed up by comprehensive political organisation skills and tireless campaigning, both within parties and in public. For a self-defined poor kid from Western Springs to rise to the rank of party president then leader of his own party and, eventually, Deputy Prime Minister, shows the extent of Jim Anderton's achievements, and his many interviews and the testimonials of friends, colleagues and a few rivals, illustrate the breadth of his talents. It's a small miracle the documentary was able to be made to this quality without much-needed public funding, and it's a credit to the production team that it's emerged in a polished form. Irrespective of its focus on one man, it's also an effective overview of 30 years of New Zealand politics, which is no mean feat. The only potential critique could be that in attempting to reflect the myriad of political signposts across a lengthy career, it sometimes errs towards political score-settling by Anderton's surviving circle.
La Gradiva (dir. Marine Atlan, France/Italy, 2026)
An engrossing immersion in a senior high-school class trip from France to the glories of Naples, including Pompeii and Vesuvius, in which the complex and mercurial hormonal dynamics within the class take precedence over most academic concerns. The leading teen actors are uniformly excellent, as is Antonia Buresi as the class' persevering classics teacher. The film really shines in two extended sequences - one, in which the teacher conveys her boundless enthusiasm for her topic despite the boisterous disruptions of a troubled class-member, and another in which five teen girls share home truths about a particularly beautiful and untrustworthy boy.
Father Mother Sister Brother (dir. Jim Jarmusch, USA, 2025, feat. Tom Waits, Adam Driver, Charlotte Rampling, Cate Blanchett & Vicky Krieps)
An amiable, if somewhat aimless trilogy of expertly-cast and convincingly-portrayed family scenes - one set in rural America, one in the genteel Dublin suburbs, and the final in the heart of urban Paris. There are some gently perceptive observations of the minute awkwardness of family dynamics and the facades erected to maintain equilibrium with a parent or sibling, but ultimately it's the impressive cast that merits attention, rather than the material they're working with, which doesn't offer much in the way of profundity.
Movies: Film festival roundup 2025, 2024, 2023, 2022, 2021, 2020, 2019, 2018, 2017, 2016 part 1 / part 2, 2015, 2014, 2013, 2012, 2011, 2009
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